A WEST VIRGINIA JUDGE has upheld the three day suspension of a 15-year-old
high school student for wearing T-shirts with messages such as: "When I saw
the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a newly recovered sense of
national security. God Bless America." She had also attempted to form an
anarchy club. Circuit judge James Stucky said that free speech rights are "sacred"
but are "tempered by the limitations that they ... not disrupt the educational
process." James Withrow, lawyer for the Kanawha County Board of Education, argued
that an anarchy club was inappropriate because students "do not feel that their
school is a safe place anymore. Anarchy is the antithesis of what we believe
should be in schools."

But an anarchist club seem to be ok in a Fremont, CA high school ...

Members
lobby for human, animal rights Irvington students form `anarchist' club

BY DANA HULL
San Jose Mercury News Staff Writer
Published January 24, 2000, in the San Jose Mercury News

Irvington High School has a chess club, a ski club and the Little Saigon Vietnamese
club. But a group of sophomores have recently formed the school's first real
political club and call themselves the Anarchist
Student Union.

The club's goal is to bring issues such as sweatshop labor and the controversial
decisions of the Fremont school board to the forefront of campus discussions.
The students gather every Wednesday during their lunch period and have a faculty
adviser.

``We're surprised that we got the club approved,'' said club president Anna
Propas, 15. ``We're the misfits of Irvington. We don't conform to what society
thinks is normal.''

Anarchy technically means an absence of government and lack of order. However,
it has taken on different meanings and attracts adherents from across the political
spectrum. There are eco-anarchists, communist anarchists, radical anarchists
and libertarian anarchists. And not all people who call themselves anarchists
agree on the movement's terminology or various schools of thought.

Anarchy has a long political history, both in the United States and abroad,
from the reform efforts of Emma Goldman during World War I and afterward to
the trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the 1920s.
The explosive word often engenders images of pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails,
or black-clad young people in Seattle smashing Starbucks windows during the
recent World Trade Organization riots.

``When a lot of people think of anarchy, they think of violence,'' said Ian
Morris, 15. ``It's really a form of self-governance and self-rule. But most
people don't realize that.''

The universal symbol for anarchy -- an ``A'' in a circle -- appears spray-painted
at youth hangouts all over the Bay Area. And Bound Together Books, an anarchist
bookstore in San Francisco's Haight neighborhood, has become a mecca for young
people interested in learning more about the issue.

At Irvington, the small club is made up primarily of Anna and a dozen of her
friends, many of them vegans and vegetarians who care deeply about animal rights.
Several expressed frustration that their peers seem consumed by shopping and
buying the latest trendy consumer goods. But the students also agreed that their
immediate challenge is explaining to other students what anarchy means.

Proponents say anarchy has become increasingly attractive to young people
in part because much of their behavior -- skateboarding, smoking, being late
to school, punk-rock fashion -- has been criminalized. The spate of school shootings
last year has inspired school districts across the country to crack down with
stringent dress codes, metal detectors and tough truancy laws, leaving little
room for the teenage rebellion once seen as a normal rite of passage.

Irvington's students do not advocate total chaos, and in fact appear willing
to work within ``the system.'' Many anarchy club members regularly attend Fremont
Unified school board meetings, and have eloquently spoken to trustees about
the need to improve Irvington's honors program.

Irvington's administration also has been supportive of the club's efforts
to politicize the high school campus.

"Initially, the name anarchist sort of caught our attention,'' said Irvington
Principal Pete Murchison. ``But I'm a former social studies teacher, and as
a learning institution I think it's important that we give kids a number of
opportunities to connect with each other. They are very politically active students,
and they have a lot of insight as to what is going on.''

This spring, the club plans to investigate whether the company that manufactures
graduation caps and gowns uses sweatshop labor and to push school officials
to find an alternative manufacturer.

Members say they hope to raise political awareness about global issues and
are articulate in expressing their point of view.

``Even the U.S. government has fallen into a lull on many important free-trade
issues concerning human rights and economic development in Third World countries,''
said Anna Propas. ``It's not so much that they ignore the issues but chose half
solutions rather than facing the underlying issue or the cause of the problem.''

Members of the Anarchist Student Union also hope to shake their fellow students
out of what they call political apathy.

``At Irvington everybody has their clique and they just like to follow along
with the crowd,'' said Ariel Schwitalla, 15. ``We're the salmon running against
the stream.''